We’re not far off from a frenzied holiday shopping season.
As it happens around this time every year, you can expect to see a lot of tech deals online and at brick-and-mortar stores. The research arm of Adobe expects retailers to offer discounts of up to 28 percent off list price for consumer electronics, and up to 23 percent for computers.
But as you map out your must-score tech purchases, it’s worth considering what should happen to the electronics you already have, and whom it may be able to help.
Rather than let them gather dust, a number of organizations and nonprofits across the United States will gladly take your old desktops, laptops, tablets and more. By donating to these groups, you’re not just decluttering your home, you’re also helping to get tech to some of the people who might benefit from it most.
“Of course we want to give gifts to those that we love, in recognition of our relationship and how much we care about them,” says Megan Steckly, CEO of a Texas nonprofit called Compudopt, which takes donations of personal electronics. “But let’s also take a moment to make sure we’re doing the same for our community.”
The nonprofit holds hundreds of giveaways in more than three dozen cities every year, Steckly says, where it gives out upward of 300 laptops to families and residents who sign up and qualify.
“It takes about two hours to get 500 computers out,” she adds. “It moves really fast.”
Most of the computers it refurbishes and gives away come from companies and corporations upgrading their models. (The replacement cycle for computers at companies is more frequent than consumers replace their own tech — every two to three years.) Only about 10 percent of computers donated by individuals are in good enough shape to turn around and distribute to others, but that doesn’t mean these personal donations — often sourced from drop-offs at Micro Center stores across the U.S. — aren’t valuable.
Steckly says donations are often harvested for parts used to refurbish computers Compudopt plans to give away, or resold on the organization’s eBay page to earn money to fund the team’s operations. Donations that can’t be flipped in some way are recycled responsibly, with Compudopt receiving a cut of the revenue that comes from harvesting and reselling the materials inside as commodities.
Compudopt is somewhat unusual in that the computers it offers are totally free, but it isn’t alone in trying to turn old tech into sources of opportunity for the disadvantaged.
Organizations like PCs for People and Human-I-T also accept donations of old tech, and will refurbish and sell pre-owned computers to those who meet specific income or government assistance requirements at steep discounts.
Another nonprofit, Digitunity, takes things a step further: When you go to donate an old computer to them, you can select a participating local organization to direct your PC to. In San Francisco, for example, that means a tech donation could help out local after-school programs or an art initiative for children with disabilities.
Even though we live in the age of smartphones, these organizations trying to connect more people with PCs seem to be onto something important.
A study published in the May edition of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication found that computer ownership was a stronger predictor of what researchers called “beneficial internet use” than smartphones. That means a household with a computer — not just phones — is more likely to use the internet for practical, beneficial things like searching for jobs online, getting health information or using government tools and services.
“In short: computers matter,” wrote researchers Amy Gonzales and Xinyi Zhang at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who were behind the study.
Additionally, Steckly says, getting PCs into more homes could help families reclaim another precious resource: time.
“Most of the families we’re serving are some of the most time-poor households in the country. They’re working multiple jobs, they’re working nights, they’re more likely to pay their bills in person,” she said. “By giving people access to technology at home, we’re giving them their family time back.”
Even now, decades after the term “digital divide” entered the public consciousness, the gap between those who can fully access the benefits of modern tech and those who can’t is still very real. Donating your old computer to the right organizations this holiday season won’t fix that, but to some people, it might narrow that gap just enough to be genuinely meaningful.
Pro tips for donating your tech
Considering donating your PC after all? The organizations above will happily wipe the hard drives or SSDs in the computers you donate, but just to be safe, you should really do it yourself first. Here’s how to do that for Macs and for Windows PCs.
Don’t just rely on the cloud! You already know you should back up your important files before giving a computer away, but consider this a friendly reminder to keep local copies of that data somewhere safe in addition to storing it in services like Google Drive or iCloud.
The post In this season of gift giving, try putting your old tech to good use appeared first on Washington Post.
